The new and improved Coach Mullin

beast of the east

beast of the east

Active member
I know I have been simultaneously one of Coach Mullin's biggest supporters and biggest critics - which appears to be a dichotomy, but not really.

I want him to be an awesome coach, mostly because he represented SJU as an amazing athlete and continuing to be a regular guy who is approachable. He started out here with zero experience and almost a zero roster - not a good formula for success.

I have been very vocally critical about how he delegated responsibility and was almost a silent observer on the bench as others provided in game coaching. Before this mini run and after a devastating loss to Penn State I posted that Mullin had finally assumed HC bench coaching, being engaged end to end. He still was largely vacant from the timeout huddles, and that bothered me.

Last night that ended.

I documented every timeout huddle, as I was surprised that the very first huddle it was Mullin and Mullin alone speaking to players. I did the same for the second, third, and finally the entire game. Everyone was the same:

1st half:
9:00 minutes: Mullin leads timeout
7:10 Mullin
5:16 Mullin
3:24 Mullin
1:20 Mullin

2nd half:
19:00 Mullin
15:49 Mullin
13:18 Mullin
11:01 Mullin
and so on

St. Jean stayed on the outer rim of the huddle and it was Chris directing his players. Win or lose, this is how it's got to be. Basketball coaching isn't rocket science, but it can be overwhelming even if you played HOF caliber ball yourself but never had to run the whole show. Mullin, to me, has finally stepped into those shoes.

From here on out, I'm now totally confident that Chris will continue to grow as a competent, confident coach, get better players, and win here. Last night we hung in against a top ten team with a lottery pick freshman center, even on a night where Lovett and Ponds weren't at their best.

Better days ahead. As far as I'm concerned, Chris had finally assumed complete control and by doing so dramatically increased his chances of success here. Once again, I am totally on board with him regardless of our record from this point forward.
 
Much needed and on target post. Also he now dresses so as to look like one who deserves respect. Big hole is that he does not understand that if he rides refs they will ride him back. Also other coaches have an asst watch warmups which can reveal if a player is unfocused-we should also
 
Much needed and on target post. Also he now dresses so as to look like one who deserves respect. Big hole is that he does not understand that if he rides refs they will ride him back. Also other coaches have an asst watch warmups which can reveal if a player is unfocused-we should also
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He did go berserk when Ellison was called for a foul near midcourt in the second half in a dive and scramble for the ball and kept it up for a long time. Other than that he was more controlled than usual and attended to coaching, so an occasional outburst is ok. Refs will give him a little more leeway because of who he is, and there's nothing wrong with letting refs know they blew a call, as long as you don't ride them all game, which is what he did last season.
 
With respect, the ref knew he blew the call as soon as he made it. If not, the crowd told him. Had CM controlled himself he may well have gotten--who knows.from that ref
 
Agree with everything said. I would have been OK with him getting T'd up with the Ellison foul. Should have been a non-call. Plus there were a number of other poor calls against the Redmen earlier.
 
Hopefully he has turned a corner -- he saw the floor way too well as a player for me to think he'd be a horrible coach. But as others have said, optics matter, so I'm glad to see him more involved. It was a bad look last year for St. Jean to do everything, and it contributed to us being on the hook for Slice's salary.
 
Much needed and on target post. Also he now dresses so as to look like one who deserves respect. Big hole is that he does not understand that if he rides refs they will ride him back. Also other coaches have an asst watch warmups which can reveal if a player is unfocused-we should also
Click to expand...

Has he sat on a table this season? :p :whistle:
 
Clipboard is strategically located there now...either by design or luck. Also, AD Goff was at scorers table a few times next to bench so I don't think sitting there would look too good.

Hopefully a thing of the past and somehow these fan observations do make their way to those involved or need to be aware.
 
Hopefully he has turned a corner -- he saw the floor way too well as a player for me to think he'd be a horrible coach. But as others have said, optics matter, so I'm glad to see him more involved. It was a bad look last year for St. Jean to do everything, and it contributed to us being on the hook for Slice's salary.
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Funny I got accused of criticizing him last year, but I was really just pointing out the obvious. He was really setting himself up to be criticized. He was facing a hard enough battle to get the program respectable, no need to give critics any further ammo.
 
He used all of his time outs early to keep the team in the game from getting blown out last night.
 
Agree with everything said. I would have been OK with him getting T'd up with the Ellison foul. Should have been a non-call. Plus there were a number of other poor calls against the Redmen earlier.
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There were a number of calls/non-calls last night that would have justified getting T'd up
 
I have no problem with Mullin getting on the refs but would like to see him make his points and then let it go and move on. Before the second half started he was having an animated discussion with one of the refs and Mitch was standing there talking to Chris and trying to lightly pull him by the arm away from the ref and it took another 30 seconds for Chris to walk away. Mitch tried to talk him off the ledge at least one other time that I noticed.
 
Agree with Muse and Bamafan. CM is trying to work the refs, but more often than not it is backfiring on him. Instead of getting makeup calls, he's antagonizing them and it's going the other way.

Maybe how you deal with refs as a coach needs a different approach than how you do it as a player.
 
His engagement with players during the game has improved. He rarely sits and def doesn't sit on the scorers table anymore. (Bad optics even though I had given him a pass on that in the past)

Something has clicked for him and I think he can get even better. They have a gameplan for these games and even if the team doesn't execute it correctly at least they have a plan and plays to run against there being just playground hero ball (Lavin years and Mullin year one).

Also we are at a point where the last three wins if you checked the message boards for those teams they all claimed Mullin out coached them.
 
Much needed and on target post. Also he now dresses so as to look like one who deserves respect. Big hole is that he does not understand that if he rides refs they will ride him back. Also other coaches have an asst watch warmups which can reveal if a player is unfocused-we should also
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Muse! My MSG buddy. Hope you are in my row again this year. Agree on the look the part comment - Mullin actually looks really good in a suit, and don't know if anyone saw it, but he had bright SJU color socks on this week on the bench
 
Much needed and on target post. Also he now dresses so as to look like one who deserves respect. Big hole is that he does not understand that if he rides refs they will ride him back. Also other coaches have an asst watch warmups which can reveal if a player is unfocused-we should also
Click to expand...

Muse! My MSG buddy. Hope you are in my row again this year. Agree on the look the part comment - Mullin actually looks really good in a suit, and don't know if anyone saw it, but he had bright SJU color socks on this week on the bench
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Channeling his inner Mulzoff. :)
 
We go on a 16-1 run against Xavier to go up by 9 points. Even better, Xavier is having some foul trouble. So... what does Mullin do? He puts in Mussini, Alibegovic and Freudenberg.

Absolutely INEXCUSABLE. This is Xavier, you get a lead against a team like this, you have to put the boot to their throats while you can. Instead, Mullin just took any momentum we had and drained the life right out of it with that insanely bad Eurotrash lineup.

Would we still have won? Maybe not. Ahmed stunk, Ponds wasn't good either. But we would have had a shot.

I am beyond pissed at Mullin.
 
100% agree on how ridiculous that 3 man substitution looked at that point in time.

Can't fathom what would make them think having them all on court at same time would even hold the lead, let along extend it.

They weren't going to create their own 3 pt shots...

Head scratching.......
 
We go on a 16-1 run against Xavier to go up by 9 points. Even better, Xavier is having some foul trouble. So... what does Mullin do? He puts in Mussini, Alibegovic and Freudenberg.

Absolutely INEXCUSABLE. This is Xavier, you get a lead against a team like this, you have to put the boot to their throats while you can. Instead, Mullin just took any momentum we had and drained the life right out of it with that insanely bad Eurotrash lineup.

Would we still have won? Maybe not. Ahmed stunk, Ponds wasn't good either. But we would have had a shot.

I am beyond pissed at Mullin.
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Not sure that it would have changed the result, but I thought that was the beginning of the end. Sometimes coaches become creatures of habit and make changes - just because. Alibegovic should not play - period. RF looked plain scared (air balled a floater) but I will cut him some slack being a freshmen.

As bad as it looked, I think Xavier is the type of team that we can beat on a good night. No dominant big. Unfortunately, we just refuse to play defense.
 
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